The Daily News recently reported that

NYC Department of Health employees bitten by bed bug problem at Long Island City office 
Freaked out employees were notified of the problem late Tuesday night and told to bag up their belongings, sources said.

By Tracy Miller / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 
Thursday, September 19, 2013, 7:08 PM

New York City Department of Health employees are biting mad about a bed bug infestation at the department’s Long Island City office building.

After frantic reports of sightings over the past several weeks, higher-ups notified employees in an email late Tuesday night that live bug colonies had been found on the tower’s 11th floor.

“Although in the past we have found individual bed bugs, we have for the first time in the past week found a group of bed bugs living in one area of the 11th floor of the building,” the message read.

Read the full article here.

This is an ongoing issue that the Health Department has not been able to resolve. We wrote about this infestation a few weeks ago in this blog entry.

We note the irony in the city agency with significant responsibility for fighting bed bug issues being unable to resolve its own problems. The bigger issue is that the strategies the DOHMH and many offices use to treat bed bug issues are incomplete, so they are left with bed bug problems even after they hire a pest control company. The Health Department did not detect the full extent of the infestation at the beginning of its treatment program. It is also using methods “vacuuming, steam-cleaning and applying small amounts of pesticide” that are either ineffective or incomplete.

Any bed bug treatment must use physical solutions that can treat electronics and furniture where these insects hide. Steam can’t be used to treat office computers and can damage wood and other furniture. And vacuuming doesn’t get deep inside the crevices where these insects hide and lay eggs.

In contrast, Bell Environmental provides detailed and labor intensive treatments, and thorough treatments are the key to solving bed bug issues. Customers can be confident InstantFreeze will eliminate bed bugs. Bed Bug treatments need to cover computers and electronics where insects also hide. Bell Environmental’s InstantFreeze is uniquely safe for treating computers, server rooms, and data centers.